Posted
by
timothy
on Sunday July 10, 2011 @05:12PM
from the for-your-favorite-white-box dept.

dkd903 writes "The CentOS team just announced the availability of CentOS Linux version 6.0 for both i386 and x86_64 architectures. CentOS 6.0 is based on the upstream release of RHEL 6.0 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) and includes packages from all variants."

Its been a long time coming but its finally here. While RHEL/CentOS does seem to be falling a bit out of favour with the cool kids these days its still my go-to OS for server builds, Cent5.x has been an excellent platform, hoping 6 continues that tradition.

You can actually thank the Fedora community for the SELinux support. Some people turn off the SELinux in Fedora because they don't understand how it works. I leave it on and watch the logs to see what if any errors pop up. Complaining that is hard to use or that you don't understand it doesn't help make the system run better and definitely not more secure. There is also the fact that Fedora ships with a SELinux tool (SELinux Troubleshooter) to tell what isn't setup/working properly and how to fix it. If you

Not really. CentOS have been glacial in getting 6.0 out the door, and worse, RHEL 6.0 is a clusterfuck anyway. As an example, no RHEL 6.0 RPM for Heartbeat is available, because RHEL failed to build the packages that Heartbeat depends on. Want to do simple IP failover on RHEL 6.0? Tough!

Months ago, I was just finishing up my first run through a study guide for the RHCE, based on the 5.x series of RHEL, when I read that RHEL 6.0 had just been released, and at the same time, that the certification program was reworked to be based upon RHEL 6. The natural approach for self-study on a budget was to use CentOS, especially as that is the preferred Linux distribution for my employer, and for most jobs I've seen that specify familiarity with a particular Linux distribution.

SL does not have the goal of binary compatibility, and some of their packages aren't directly link comparable. They just follow RHEL close enough for their needs. SL and CentOS have different target audiences:

Redhat derived distros are nice for servers, like CentOS. Ubuntu derived distros are nice for clients.

I fail to see how CentOS is un-nice for clients. And I say that as someone who has rolled-out several hundred CentOS client workstations.

If your assertion is that Ubuntu is better for clients, simply because it's newer and shinier, then you're thinking of very different "clients" than I am. If you want to fiddle with the latest unstable versions of everything, be my guest. I'd rather have a stable platfo

Absolutely not true. I've worked for three companies now that used Ubuntu. Often times, they stuck to the LTS release for extra stability and longevity, but they're still using Ubuntu. CentOS is very often a long way behind - after all, CentOS 5.0 was released over four years ago. I've had trouble maintaining an ageing MediaWiki site running on CentOS since MediaWiki have recently dropped support for PHP 4 - which is still the only version of PHP available in the main repositories for CentOS 4.

That's all well and good, but when you go four years between releases, that creates unnecessary problems with old software. Ubuntu does not have this issue. Even if you stick to the LTS releases, their software isn't so old as to cause serious incompatibilities with software you may need to install that aren't in the repositories.

Um, yes Ubuntu has has serious issues with old software, even in LTS. I got burned by this with just last month with Apache 2.2.14 on 10.04 LTS. That version has bad memcpy bug, that we hit after changing our config, but it hadn't been updated in 10.04 LTS. I had to tweak my repo settings to get 2.2.16 from maverick, and was lucky it worked. Where's the LTS in this? It was hardly an obscure bug.

There has been a lot of drama recently about why CentOS 6 took so long to be released.
Things to consider;
To maintain binary compatibility, they need to not just replace the copyright material and build the source. They need to duplicate the build environment *exactly*. Compile flags, build order, etc. This while also keep the EL5 and EL4 releases updated and patched. This is something EL derivatives like Scientific Linux do not concern themselves with, for better and worse.
I do know that the CentOS team have been working to improve their project, and some hear may have ideas and suggestions. Please feel free to join the CentOS mailing list(s) and pass along your ideas.
Digimer

I'm afraid that they dropped the ball so hard and far this time that I, and many others have already switched to Scientific Linux, which certainly seems a most suitable replacement.

The political power BS and games played behind the delays were just so far beyond ridiculous for such an important project that it makes it untouchable IMHO. It is next to impossible to have any faith in their intentions or openness going forward.

It wasn't until CentOS 6.0 was delayed beyond reasonable expectation did I find out CentOS was managed by a very small, closed group. The closed part was a little unnerving considering the open source nature of the project.

I wrote a blog entry on The rise and fall of CentOS [2ndquadrant.com] that talks at some length (including long into the discussions) about why CentOS has failed to prosper specifically because they are not an open, growing community, and about how they might emulate more successful open-source projects instead.

It wasn't until CentOS 6.0 was delayed beyond reasonable expectation did I find out CentOS was managed by a very small, closed group. The closed part was a little unnerving considering the open source nature of the project.

As I understand the common team and community positions, from the long debates on the -devel list:

1) The source is open, the project is not.1a) After saying this, much of the build information has been dribbled out on the list anyway, but only after heated encouragement.1b) There is no interest in codifying this build information (ala a B(uild)RPM file to automate the process). See also: 3b.2) The C in CentOS (community) refers to the target of the product, not the process.3) Many people on the list would like to see an open project, run by the community, more like Fedora.3a) This would lead to faster releases.3b) It is assumed this would create friction with Redhat by helping its competition, and thus cool relations with the CentOS team or cause Redhat to discontinue its fully-open strategy for software it writes.3c) There has been talk that after 6.1 is out the door that the team will look into addressing some of these concerns.3d) Nobody has talked seriously about fork, yet. There's probably no RHEL 7 on the horizon, so there's a long time to prepare if it ultimately becomes necessary. Whitebox Linux to CentOS in a way proved the viability of this option, but almost nobody would prefer it.

Feel free to join the ClearOS Core [clearfoundation.com] team. ClearFoundation [clearfoundation.com] produces the same specification on the code, has corporate backing, with open involvement from the community. We want you and are willing to listen and allow participation from everyone.

Thanks - I found this blog post [clearfoundation.com] essential for understanding the project(s).

To summarize in one phrase: ClearOS Core ~= CentOS, but with an open development process. There are then additional add-ons also available for functionality that does not exist in RHEL or CentOS, under the ClearOS umbrella.

Considering that CentOS already has a significant amount of the Linux marketshare I think it's safe to say that the competition has been "helped" significantly as-is.

To be clear, the understood quid-pro-quo seems to be that CentOS doesn't come out before Unbreakable Linux does, or at least Oracle doesn't get any help from the CentOS process (which is to figure out Redhat's convoluted, probably intentionally so, build process). It's implied that CentOS gets some unofficial support from Redhat but the first

It wasn't until CentOS 6.0 was delayed beyond reasonable expectation did I find out CentOS was managed by a very small, closed group. The closed part was a little unnerving considering the open source nature of the project.

Lots of opensource projects are managed by a "small, closed group" - are they ALL unnerving?

You must mean after the January updates, when Redhat was only putting out 5.6 updates..Centos didn't put out 5.6 until April 8, and there was a buttload of updates starting April 14th. So yeah, no 5.6 updates while they were trying to get 5.6 out.

One thing to consider is that by the dates I read, they made the decision to support their existing 5.x customers by doing 5.6 before 6.0. This decision was based in large part on feedback from the existing "customer base". The Scientific Linux group decided to do 6.0 first and follow that with 5.6. Both have gotten to the same point within a few weeks of each other. Their order was simply opposite. It will be interesting to see when each gets the next 6.1 release.

besides that, SL-6 is not as close to RHEL as CentOS, for example, I was not able to install SL-6 as a domU into a Xen dom0 2 weeks ago.. right now I easily installed CentOS-6 as a domU in the very same dom0. SL simply forgets several things, CentOS people are much more closer to RHEL-6 in this way.

I can second this. We use a number of commercial applications that run on Linux, including VMWare Zimbra, WebHelpDesk and Quickbooks Enterprise. All of them only support RHEL but CentOS runs perfectly. I think the only thing I ever had difficulty with was Crystal Reports Server (Business Objects), which checked for RHEL is some weird way, not just reading/etc/redhat-release.

CentOS will have 6.1 out sooner becasue they built tools and tests and infrastructure for RH6.0. Since they will be supporting it for the next 7 years, 6 months does not seem bad. CentOS has had some internal issues but this release definitely shows they are getting it together again. Still my favorite by far. Also, I usually compile my own major applications (such as Apache) and not use the distro source. Of course, Apache makes RPMs available as well.

I didn't follow it too closely but, in short, it's that the maintainers are a small, closed group that doesn't want to let anyone else into the pool. It's one thing for an OSS project to be delayed because the people working on it have other shit to do in their lives, it's another entirely when they're too busy to finish a job and actively reject volunteers from the community.

You may find your Fermilab d00ds disappearing as the Tevatron is shut down, the lab will be in skeleton crew mode soon with only some small peripheral projects ongoing. Historically it was mostly Fermilab that carried the weight of Scientific Linux, wonder if CERN is up to carrying the load?

I haven't any mod points, so I'll just reply to add some detail to your very important points about the build system. RedHat made changes that obscured the build process somewhat, and which may have been aimed at Oracle but ended up affecting CentOS as well. Most notably, builds of some RPM's are made with kernel versions that are only available internally at RedHat - these kernel versions contain patches that may have been released in other kernel SRPM's, but it's not possible to correlate them with the un

It wasn't only this release. Their releases have been slipping farther and father behind as time has gone on. The unforgivable part was the complete lack of updates for CentOS5 while the hamster wheels were spinning trying to get 5.6 out the door. We're talking several months. That's just not acceptable. When people complained, they got a steady diet of "if you don't like it, you can go elsewhere." OK, message received.

We've stopped using it at work as a result and will be using SL going forward.

Do you think we could maybe, in the year 2011, make the assumption that there really isn't anybody out there who'd try to run our code on a 386? Maybe we could start targeting slightly more recent architectures?

The OP mean i386 vs i486, i586 or i686 (or later) 32-bit CPU targets. The RPMs have.i386 in the name, implying that they can run on CPUs as early as the i386. I don't know if that's strictly true anymore (or even has been for a while). It may be one of those things like the old i386 directory in the Linux kernel source being for all 32-bit CPUs, not just the 386.

Unless things have changed recently, glibc will support only the 486 and newer processors.

But yes, realistically they should shoot for the 586 or 686, because nobody's going to run a modern distro on such ancient hardware; I'd be surprised if anyone tried it on something as old as a Pentium-MMX.

Most netbooks are 32-bit x86 (i386.) It's not safe to assume x64 is universal among PC's yet.

It's pretty close to entirely safe to assume these processors are at least 486 or 586 based - if not 686. After all, the first processors to support the i686 [wikipedia.org] instruction set were released in November 1995!

But sometimes i386 really does mean 32-bit x86 (IA-32). I mentioned in a previous post that for quite some time, there was the arch/i386 directory in the Linux kernel source. But it was not by any means 386-specific. i386 just mean the x86 architecture.

Well, if it is actually compiled for i686, then calling it "i386" is just plain wrong.

i386 has, forever, been the name used to denote the 32-bit, Intel-compatible, CPU architecture.

x86 is far, far too easy to confuse with x86-64.

IA-32 is a relatively new term, and reeks too much of Intel marketing. I'd be happy with denoting 32-bit platforms as "IA-32" and 64-bit platforms as "AMD64", but I think Intel would profusely object to the later, though it's quite accurate...

The naming of x86-64 has a funny history. Back in 2001 or so, AMD called the 64-bit extensions to x86 simply "x86-64". By 2003 however they decided to change the name to "AMD64". Of course, by then Intel was already trying to copy it. They revealed this to the public in 2004, first calling it "IA-32e", and soon after "EM64T". When they released their Core 2 processor in 2006 as the second processor to support it (first was Prescott and it's variants), they renamed it again to "Intel 64". On the matter of "IA-32", that name was coined I think when they were developing Itanium (before x86-64 even existed). The Itanium architecture was called "IA-64". Later on as x86-64 gained prominence, Intel renamed the "IA-64" architecture to "IPF" (Itanium Processor Family) to avoid confusion.

What I want to know is this: are they making a xen kernel and associated packages available? That's what I really need. Before you say "build your own" I'll point out that if I had the time for that, I would, but I don't want to have to rebuild the kernel and dependent modules every time a patch is released.

Moved all of my machines that weren't already CentOS to CentOS from Fedora over the last two months. I used Fedora 15 for all of about ten minutes before I got tired of Fedora's attempt to pretend that they are the Ubuntu project.

It's probably a reference to how Fedora 15 uses GNOME 3 as the default DE even though it's still young and hasn't stood up to any length of real-world use yet, just like Ubuntu 11.04 uses Unity as the default despite the same issues with it.

RedHat and paying was put first as the least attractive option to contrast with the rest. Redhat did drop Itanium, but still have PPC for IBM servers (no client version, either). For server Debian or Gentoo would be the good GNU/Linux choices, as are the BSD depending on particular need

That would be a niche market, those who would use Linux on PPC but unwilling to pay RedHat subscription, most have pockets plenty deep. Maybe less than one for every thousand centos clients there are now would be customer. Not worth the resources Centos or Scientific Linux would have to throw at it.

I wouldn't rule out Gentoo, it has binary builds, and also a system for rolling out builds and updates to a group of machines. Not my first pick, but not impossible.

trying to create your own reality there? I work with dozens of clients running Centos as their main OS, not a one has changed.
You are very irresponsible as a sys admin for mission critical applications if you immediately change releases when RedHat does, without testing for months.
Meanwhile Scientific Linux waited until June 21 to put out 5.6, because they put that on the back burner in their rush to heave 6 out the door, and do they maintain past versions? no!

This isn't Ubuntu, or Fedora, or ArchLinux, or any of the other Linux distributions primarily designed for desktops, developer workstations, or technically adept hobbyists. This is CentOS we're talking about, which like RHEL on which it is based, is designed for enterprise servers. From what I've seen, servers are set up with a stable version of a server-oriented distribution, and there's no full distribution upgrade unless the server is decommissioned and repurposed.

You do understand, though, that new servers are being purchased and put online all the time, and that for precisely the reason you mention, one hesitates to load them on day one with a FOUR YEAR OUT OF DATE operating system (and one whose support ends in less than 3 years from now). Also, RHEL and clones are not only suited for servers. RHEL is not even marketed only for servers; there are Desktop and Workstation licenses. And guess what. Support for Sandy Bridge video found in new desktops and laptops

You do understand, though, that new servers are being purchased and put online all the time, and that for precisely the reason you mention, one hesitates to load them on day one with a FOUR YEAR OUT OF DATE operating system (and one whose support ends in less than 3 years from now).

Red Hat's end of life for the 5.x series is in three years. However, RHEL 6.0 was released in November 2010, and RHEL 5.6 was released in January 2011, so describing CentOS 5.6 as four years out of date doesn't seem accurate. Also, Red Hat ends support for RHEL 5.x in three years, but if an enterprise is using CentOS on its servers, it's obviously foregoing direct support from Red Hat.

The point is that if you're choosing an enterprise edition of Linux, it's presumably because having the latest point release

Considering they will be supporting 6.0 for 7 years, I don't think six months is a long time to build the testing and releasing infrastructure. For you to say that "most people using CentOS have moved on" is basically patently false. If you have any statistics or evidence to back up that statement, I'd love to hear them sir. I'm sure we'll see quite soon when the download numbers are out. CentOS is the only binary compatible free version of RHEL, which is the only truely commercial business Linux available (ok, there's IBM still, but no Novell anymore). If I need to go from free CentOS to supported RHEL, I can do that very easily with my existing applications and configurations. And they have GOOD support, as in some of the best I've ever seen. And great documentation. And training. I look at Ubuntu and I see a distro that's one big mistake away from collapsing. I also see a desktop distro for consumers and not a business system.

No, actually, it's not patently (i.e., obviously on its face) false. It may well be true, or false, depending on, as you say, actual statistical findings.

And there is a large subset of users who couldn't care less about exact binary compatibility, though yes, for some users it is critical. You don't even specify exactly what you mean by binary compatibility. As far as I am aware[*], Scientific Linux (and presumably PUIAS) is binary compatible at the userspace level, which is the only level most users shou

Right, Debian Stable, that's the one. But again, there's no RedHat out there getting it on Dell servers or getting companies to port their applications to it. And JBoss is close to the best application server for any price. And distro provided clustering is good and seamless. And there's RedHat directory, which is also good. I see RedHat making money--actual profits--with Linux and then plowing it back into the most important aspects of a business Linux and really doing more than any company to promote

Also, I want to add that I'm not against Scientific Linux. I think it's a great product. I think they tend to rush to the newer releases because they are more likely to be running HPC and other projects needing stuff. I feel like as far as QA, CentOS emphasizes what I need it for, which is stable application servers and database servers. I need a stable OS that I can build my applications and servers on. I don't really depend on Redhat or CentOS for application packages, just the core OS. I find that

Considering 6.1 has been out for some time this is a bit of a non event, most people using CentOs have moved on.

Quite the opposite. I was expecting it to be a non-event, too. Instead, reading the announcement, I found much to be excited about.

First, while this is technically 6.0, the announcement specifically says the 6.1 updates will be going in to the rolling release branch right away, so when you do a "yum update" you'll get all the 6.1 goodness, in short order.

Secondly, their plans for LiveCD images and minimal-install CD images in the next few days, which serve important niches and which Redhat didn't even provide with their release, are very exciting too, and fills a huge need.

Besides that, companies are incredibly slow to upgrade their infrastructure anyhow. RHEL6 is a pretty major change, so people weren't rolling it out to their servers the day it was released. I know we're a fully paid-up RedHat shop and we haven't upgraded ANYTHING to RHEL6 yet.

The CentOS folks stated their inability to commit enough resource to support both 6.0 and 5.6 releases simultaneously, and got an overwhelming number of requests to go for 5.6 rather than 6.0, so we already know what most people's needs really are.

CentOS is basically a dead project to the majority of people who have moved on to more responsive distributions.

Honestly, if anyone was so desperate for the new features in RHEL6, they would have jumped ship long before even the RHEL6 beta came out. RHEL5 was getting very long in the tooth, so if you had a real need for what's available now, why didn't you switch to Fedora 13, more than a year ago? Where are these people that desperately needed these updates 6 months ago, but didn't need them 18 months ago and were happy with RHEL5 until just recently?

Really, a few (and I do mean a few, certainly not "the majority") impatient folks that didn't feel like waiting for a CentOS6 desktop to play with, aren't representative of anything. And if you did switch to SL6, RHEL6, or Fedora 13, it's just a repo change and a yum upgrade to go back to the CentOS packages.

Sorry, but this is the height of naive. CentOS casts a very *VERY* long shadow!

Do you want a nice, supported, "Enterprise" Linux but don't have much budget to spend? Guess what: CentOS is almost your only choice. SL is nice, but it's not binary compatible with RHEL. Mix and match a few packages with a few "EL5/6" repos and you very quickly will run into binary hell.

Other than RHEL, what "Enterprise" options are available? What you need is

CentOS jumped the shark quite a while ago. I'd say 2009. Lance Davis, the founder, flew the coop (just literally went AWOL) and no one thought to get control of the centos.org domain from him for a year. Meantime you couldn't contribute to the project using PayPal. Then the developers got an unenviable reputation for arrogance and supercilious unfriendliness to the desires of mere users. Finally there was the extremely long delay for 6.0. The release of 5.6, which wasn't all that rapid either, brought to the surface a disturbing problem with security updates for 5.5 not being forthcoming while 5.6 was being worked on.

Many of these problems have been addressed; some haven't, at least not fully. Most anyone who had a serious need to be in the right technology DECADE this year has already jumped ship to Redhat, Scientific Linux, or PUIAS. I can't say enough good thing about PUIAS. They have 6.1 already. They are no johnny come latelies, as they have been around longer than CentOS.

Hmm. I had never heard of PUIAS. I had to go look it up.It's not listed in distrowatch (that's weird; the only other distro I know that is not listed there is the Ubuntu Satanic Edition; distrowatch didn't want to list them for fear of pissing off the Christians).

It has been at least 9 years since I used Red Hat. Why is there a CentOS? Wasn't Fedora supposed to be RedHat with all of the proprietary stuff removed?

As noted in another reply, Fedora is a short-term development distribution. Don't count on reliable support much past 6 months for past releases unless you can reproduce the issue in the current release.
Pevious posts have established the puporse and desirablility of CentOS.
1. Free distributoion
2. Binary compatabilty
2. Free updates.
Build & tweak your deployment with your in-house resources.
If you have difficult to resolve issues, move the (binary compatible) applications to a RHEL lab environmen

Well, the latest kernel for RHEL and SL 6 is 2.6.32-131.2.1, so I would expect CentOS 6 to be using that as well. You can go to their mirrors and check. Since they took so long to release 6, I switched to SL 6 last December.

The reason that this is a BFD, is because RHEL is very popular for enterprise use, and CentOS is basically the free version of RHEL.

For people looking to move expensive servers from RHEL to CentOS, this is a big deal. Also, for people studying to get an RHCE, this is a big deal.

FWIW: I went back to using Ubuntu 10.10, because I did not like Ubuntu 11.04; I am thinking about moving to Mint. But, if I ever decide to get my RHCE, I will CentOS. I think Redhat should create a student version of RHEL, but I doub